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Episode 703: Down Range
'''Down Range '''is the third episode of the seventh season, and the one-hundred-and-first episode overall. Notes Synopsis Sam and Jesse travel to the Dominican Republic to help Michael with a high-stakes trade; Fiona intervenes when a bookie tries to extort Madeline. Spy Facts *For spies, the hardest part of operating in the field isn't combat. When bullets are flying, there's never really time to think. But in the quiet hours, when you're alone, thinking is all you can do. Spies don't make a habit of holding on to keepsakes for the same reason prisoners serving life sentences stop seeing visitors. As much as you might want that connection to your past life, there comes a point when a constant reminder of what you can never have is just too painful. And you can't have distractions like that when you have to focus on a job. *Operatives working under deep cover spend a lot of time alone. And no matter how hard you've trained for it, the isolation never gets easier. Since every meeting you take could compromise the operation and blow your cover, even your case officer has to keep his distance. You only get together when face-to-face contact is worth the risk of getting killed. *One of the problems with taking a mission out of the country, is that you subtract yourself from the lives of the people you love. Because they're not just going to stop living, important things are going to happen, and you're going to miss them. But the biggest problem caused by your absence, is that you're not there when the people you protect, need you the most. * There are many advantages to flying into a country on an unregistered plane. You don't wait in lines, you don't check bags, and you don't leave an incriminating paper trail. The disadvantage is that without a declared flight path, you can't land at an airport. So the best you can hope for is finding an open field and flying in low. Of course, while flying in low might keep you off the radar of the local authorities, It also means you're a lot easier to spot from the ground. * A GPS tracker can actively transmit its location from anywhere in the world. Units small enough to hide, however, aren't usually very precise, which means even though you can follow it everywhere it goes, you won't be getting much closer than a general area. That's why it's a good idea to pair your GPS tracker with a passive radio frequency identification tag. You can be sure that whatever you're looking for, you'll find it. * The key to getting through a high-security fence, is understanding how it works. The fence itself is usually divided into sections with a current flowing through. Cut a section, and an alarm goes off, pinpointing the location that's been tampered with. To compromise one of the sections, you have to match the precise current coming through the fence. Fortunately, electric alarms usually use intermittent pulses rather than a continuous signal, which means you can tap into the system as long as you do it in between pulses. Do it right, no one ever knows you were there. * Modern tracking equipment can help you follow someone without being seen, but once you've found his base of operations, you still have to do surveillance the old-fashioned way, which sometimes means waiting. * When you're undercover, it's easy to dehumanize a target and see him as nothing more than a monster you're trying to take down, but sometimes they'll catch you off guard by showing you how much they care about their cause and even how much they care about you. Those are the moments you wait for as a spy because the closer they are to you, the closer you are to destroying them. Full Recap Previously on 'Burn Notice': Michael made a deal to work with the CIA and track down a terrorist leader in the Dominican Republic. A man named Dexter Gamble was trying to gather information on Michael in Miami and he took Fi hostage. Michael heroically planned Fi's escape, only to have her run into Carlos' arms and give Michael a farewell kiss on the cheek. Down Range: Michael is back in the D.R. and all by himself. Left alone with just his thoughts, he digs up a picture of himself with Fi and burns it. The TV news reports a manhunt for someone who looks like Michael. He quickly shaves. He then meets up with Randall Burke to find out about his next job. Michael is being asked to steal a truck, and he's at a bar to meet with a guy Burke wants him to work with. Michael wants to call in Sam and Jesse but Burke wants Michael to work with his guy. The guy in the bar says his price went up because the truck Burke wants him to steal belongs to a company whose building was just blown up. The guy ups his price from $5,000 to $12.5 million. He's connected the dots from the building Burke had blown up to the truck and realizes there's some serious stuff going down. The guy threatens to talk about what he knows if Burke doesn't pay him more, but Burke isn't having it. Michael quickly gets the man's knife out of his hands and Burke winds up using the knife to kill the guy in the middle of the bar. Burke then asks Michael about his guys. Michael meets up with Agent Strong to ask about Sam and Jesse coming in. Michael convinces Strong to let Sam and Jesse join, despite wanting to use his own CIA operatives. He tells Michael that Burke is selling the satellite equipment he's stealing to Rafael Serrano, a terrorist behind several big city bombings. Strong says he can't afford any mistakes. Michael assures him it'll be fine. Meanwhile back in Miami, Sam chats up Jesse over some basketball. Jesse is actually staking out a drug dealer. Sam tells Jesse that Michael needs backup but has few details. Jesse isn't wild about jumping on a moment's notice but agrees to go with Sam. Maddy is out watching Charlie when a guy named Leo comes up and says he knew Nate ,who was a client. Leo says Nate lost "a lot of money that he couldn't pay back." Leo says Maddy needs to pay him $80,000 while Leo threatens Charlie. Leo warns Maddy that if she tries to run, he'll find her. He puts a bullet in Charlie's hand as he walks away. Fi comes to see Maddy, who says she needs Fi to watch Charlie for a few days. Fi tells Maddy she can't pay this guy the money, but Maddy doesn't know what to do. She says she wishes Michael was there, but Fi says he isn't so they'll have to handle this alone. Michael and Burke prepare for the arrival of Sam and Jesse, but their plans are interrupted when they hear radio traffic reporting a suspected drug plane (Sam and Jesse's plane, which is coming into the country undercover). Sam and Jesse get off the plane and have to scramble quickly to use the plane to block the road. They blow the plane up and it stops the cops from giving chase. Jesse tells Burke they can get the truck he wants and make a smaller mess than the hack Burke was going to use. Burke says that if anything goes wrong, he wants Sam to use his sniper rifle to take out the guards. Later, Jesse and Sam tell Michael they don't want to kill any random guard, but Michael explains the stakes. He tells them that the deal he made with the CIA was to bring Burke down and if he doesn't do it, they'll all go back to those CIA holding cells they were in for good. Back in Miami, Fi comes over and asks Maddy to gather up some valuables. They're going to give Leo some things to squirrel away, but one of those items will include a GPS tracker that Fi will use to find Leo's stash. Leo comes over and is upset that Maddy only has $24,000 and maybe $8,000 worth of jewelry. When Maddy says she needs a few days, Leo mocks her and says that her "loser son" always needed a few days, too, and never paid up. Maddy agrees that Nate was a loser and a drunk and assures Leo she'll pay. He takes the jewelry as collateral and leaves. Fi heard this whole exchange. Michael and the crew make their run for the truck. They cut through an electrical fence to give Michael space to get into the yard where the truck is stored. A guard steps outside for a cigarette and follows the sound of Michael prying open the truck door. Sam reluctantly shoots the guy in the back. Michael takes the truck and breaks out of the yard with cars chasing him. Burke throws a spike strip out to knock the chasers off course and the crew rides home free. Strong briefs some guys on the mission to take down Burke's sale of equipment to Serrano. He tells Sam and Jesse it's time for them to go home, but the pair refuse to leave. Strong agrees to let them stay to watch emphasizing "watch." Back in Miami, Fi and Maddy are staking out Leo. Maddy is feeling bad about what she said about Nate to Leo. She wonders if she could have done something different for him when he was little and she wonders whether she can do something better for Charlie. Leo leaves and isn't carrying Maddy's jewelry box, which means he stashed it. Maddy helps Fi set up the explosive that will blow out the wall where Leo's stash is hidden. Fi even lets Maddy detonate it. In the D.R., the deal between Burke and Serrano is about to go down and the CIA has people all over it. Jesse and Sam are concerned that some exit routes have been overlooked, but Strong doesn't want to hear it. Serrano shows up and has a nice intro with Burke, chatting him up about how awesome this satellite equipment is going to be for him. He asks Burke how he wants to do the deal, but we see that Burke has grabbed a gun. Burke tells Serrano, "I don't want your money." He shoots Serrano's two guards, then adds, "I just want you." Michael looks stunned. Serrano tells Burke he "just made a very serious mistake." Michael cuffs Serrano while Burke tells Serrano that he has information that is valuable to the people he works for. The CIA is surprised because they thought Burke ran his own organization. Suddenly, a helicopter comes flying over and spots the snipers. The pilot reports the snipers to Burke, who punches Serrano in the face after asking how many snipers there are and not getting an answer. Serrano says he doesn't know what he's talking about. Serrano says he didn't come with snipers because Burke only gave him the location 40 minutes earlier. Burke tells Michael that Serrano has a point, then asks Michael how he missed a sniper team if he was sweeping the location. Burke makes Michael drop his gun while Michael claims that Serrano is lying. Michael moves over toward a window and talks loudly about how the snipers aren't his. Sam gets what MIchael is doing and tells a sniper to shoot at Michael. When the sniper doesn't budge, Sam takes the gun and shoots at Michael himself obviously not hitting him, but proving enough to Burke to "show" that the snipers don't work for Michael. Michael then forces Serrano to call off the snipers. Serrano goes to the window and shouts for the snipers to fall back. Strong gives the order to the snipers to put their guns down. The helicopter pilot reports to Burke that the sniper teams are moving out and Burke tells the pilot to land. Michael and Burke run to the chopper and toss Serrano in the back. Sam is shaken from what he calls a "long day" that he was hoping would be over. Jesse says he think it's a long way from over. In Miami, Leo is looking stressed as he sits outside a coffee shop. Fi is about to go talk to him, but Maddy wants to do it herself. She walks over to Leo and lets him know she's the one who took his safe. She tells him he can have his client list back she made a few extra copies for her and her important friends but the money she took will be Charlie's college fund and Leo is to never again come near her or Charlie. He agrees to this and Maddy, turning Leo's own words around on him, squeezes Leo's cheeks and says, "I own you." Back in the D.R., Burke apologizes to Michael about having suspected him. Michael says sorry doesn't cut it. He wants to know what organization it is that Burke is working for, and whether or not he (Michael) is part of it. Burke says all will be revealed in time. Cast *Jeffrey Donovan as Michael Westen *Gabrielle Anwar as Fiona Glenanne *Bruce Campbell as Sam Axe *Coby Bell as Jesse Porter *Sharon Gless as Madeline Westen Jack Coleman ... Andrew Strong Paul Hipp ... Al Sapienza Ricardo Chavira ... Rafael Serano Adrian Pasdar ... Burke Major Events Trivia Continuity Errors